George Osborne, The "Wonga Budget" and the dark arts; house prices and Broken Britain

George Osborne's latest strategy is to trap Labour into committing to the Conservatives' spending plans (thus  making the "opposition" march to the government's financial tune, and offer the electorate an economic fait accompli).
In the meantime, "Gideon, Master Of The Dark Arts" continues the cynical strategy of divide and rule with the electorate of "strivers versus skivers", while using a hideous manipulation of numbers to pretend that the economic crisis can be blamed on the unemployed and welfare claimants, and that the only answer is to therefore bleed the helpless and the blameless, leaving the corrupt and indolent rich to continue to profit from the suffering (as Jonathan Freedland has said in his recent "Wonga Budget" article).

The behaviour of the Chancellor is so Machiavellian you almost couldn't make it up. It seems that part of George (the dark side: Gideon, Master Of The Dark Arts), almost enjoys his notoriety and unpopularity. Watching him shamelessly goad the Labour party as being the "welfare party", while also offering them to hoist themselves by their own petard, is a sickening spectacle to be seen happening in Westminster. As controller of the Tories' election strategy, as well as master of the economy, Osborne seems to revel in it, even though he is one of the most disastrous Chancellors Britain has had.

With the Tories tanking in the polls, and Ukip hoovering up much of their lost support, Osborne's strategy might seem smart (if utterly cynical) in the short-term, but is likely to be political suicide in the longer-term. I've said before about why Ukip are doing so well in the polls (and have created a new four-party political system).
But by drawing Labour in to the Tories' spending plans, it merely creates less and less to differentiate between the "big Three", to the advantage of Ukip rather than the Tories. Ukip have benefitted from the "consensus" that has existed around the three main parties; now Osborne is trying to create a "new consensus" around the idea of austerity being inevitable, with the welfare state being squarely to blame (neither actually being true in the slightest!). So if Labour buy into this "new consensus", more Labour voters
may well defect to Ukip instead, as has already started happening.
The hideous irony here is that Farage and Ukip's economic policy (when it makes sense) is even more "austere" in its view on public spending (though it is profligate in certain areas such as defence); so Labour voters who defect to Ukip because they're disillusioned with Labour turning its back on its compassionate principles will be voting for a party that is even more heartless towards the helpless than the Tories are.

It will be Farage who has most to celebrate from the latest "strategy" of Gideon, Master Of The Dark Arts.

It's difficult to know where to begin, in order to adequately explain why Osborne has been such a disaster for Britain.

I tried to explain this earlier, but but a good starting point, seeing as the figures came out just the other day, is the shocking state of the property market. It is now obvious that talk about "average UK house prices" is a nonsense, a kind of logical insanity. There is no meaningful "average" when between 2007 and today, average house prices in London have gone up by 5%, while in the rest of the UK, they have gone down by 9%; in Northern Ireland, they have gone down by a jaw-dropping 52%.
From these kind of yawning disparities, it is illogical to draw a meaningful "average", because whatever average you get is statistically meaningless - it's like comparing the GDP of Hong Kong to rural China, and saying that the "average" person has so much. How many of the people who live in those places could be called "average", and what is the use of such figures? The only "use" of such figures for Osborne is to use "average" house prices as an absurd and ludicrous bench-march to claim that the economy is improving.

It's for this reason that Osborne's greatest "achievement" (i.e. economic disaster) has been take the politics of divide and rule to the country on a financial level, and create two separate countries, divided clearly by house prices, the make-up of their economies and rates of employment.
On one hand, you have London and the Home Counties (population roughly ten million), which are as economically separate from the rest of the geographical UK that they may as well be a different country. Here, house prices continue to sky-rocket, the cost of living continues to soar, while salaries (high compared to the rest of the UK) struggle to keep up. Although unemployment is not high and there is plenty of work (both skilled and unskilled, and mostly in the private sector), people still struggle to save up money for a house, which can take more than ten years. Furthermore, there is a shortage of multiple-occupancy accommodation, making it even more difficult for families to economically survive.

It is the above part of the country that Osborne understands as meaning "The UK", and which he uses as his model to justify his economic policy. This explains his "bedroom tax" on people living in houses with empty spare rooms, for example; more on that in a moment.

Then there is the rest of the geographical UK. This is the larger part, where house prices have been on a continual downward spiral, the rate of unemployment remains stubbornly high (especially with the young), there is little incentive for private companies to invest (unlike in London), and the public sector provides a significantly larger proportion of the employment.
London-centred (and utterly ignorant) Osborne claims the large size of the public sector outside of the Home Counties is the reason why the economy there is stagnant (and all the more reason to neuter it); but history tells you it is due to a combination of factors, such as the collapse of heavy industries and mining in the post-war period, culminating in the Thatcher era.
While London's economy is diverse and service-based, the rest of the UK's is not - many regions specialised in producing certain goods upto the Second World War (Sheffield for steel, Stoke for pottery etc.). The fact that Osborne is so brainless he doesn't know simple British history (or is so heartless he doesn't care), is the most damning indictment of all. But almost all Tories have had the same view of the UK for decades, Thatcher being one of the most famous. So that lack of diversity meant that the public sector stepped in to take up the slack in the (inefficient) private sector. That is still true today for many parts of the UK outside of the Home Counties.
The "bedroom tax" was another classic example of Osborne's combination of economic brainlessness and emotional emptiness. While London has a lack of multi-occupancy housing, much of the post-industrial North has a surfeit of it. In cities and towns across much the North, single people struggle to find one bedroom flats and houses, because the houses were all built for families before the Second World War, for example. So this situation is the exact opposite to that in London. The differences in the local economy, added to the differences in the housing market, make The UK a country economically divided in two.

Having a government in London, of London and for London, is economic insanity for the rest of the country.

This is what it means to live in "Broken Britain". The UK, economically-speaking, is not fit for purpose, because, economically, it is two countries. While all large countries have disparities between the capital and the regions, in The UK, the differences, when laid about simply and clearly as above, are striking and unmistakable.

Having one economic policy for two economic realities is economically-crazy. This is what the Euro-zone is finding out, as Germany has an economic policy that works well for itself, but is creating an economic catastrophe in Southern Europe.

The Conservatives' plan is therefore to treat the rest of the UK as an out-sourced franchise of the Republic Of London.

Why religion and politics don't mix: From Northern Ireland to Syria, The Arab Spring and Turkey

I wrote an article last year about the relationship between intelligence and free thought. While religion provides the function of giving a moral code to humanity, it also takes away from humanity the ability to arrive at a judgement using their own intellect. When that judgement is a political one, the influence of religion should be looked at even more critically.   

The link between church and state (or religion and politics) has been severed in Europe for as long as anyone can care to remember. In America, that link is more nuanced, but still there on paper, if not always clearly there on the floor of Congress.
Secularism has been established in the West as the method to separate religious teachings from the official business of government.
In the UK, the most recent example of an openly-religious leader was former PM, Tony Blair, who waited until he stood down as premier before converting to Catholicism; then again, there were his infamous shared prayer-meetings with former US President, George W Bush, which were ridiculed in the British press. In a secular state, when a premier's private religious views become openly-displayed habits, ridicule is probably the best reply to remind a politician that religion is a private matter outside of the realm of government. So he then made sure to keep his religious sentiments more to himself.

Staying in the UK, the problem of what happens when when religion and politics fuse together is seen daily across the water from London, in Northern Ireland. The clash of two Christian branches, Catholicism and Protestantism, led to a sectarian conflict. After the thirty years of "The Troubles", the religious divides are as sharp as ever, even if the violence has subsided. The politics of Northern Ireland are divided as always; the Catholics voting one way, the Protestants another.
Not long ago, the province was ruled by Rev. Ian Paisley, a hardline Protestant priest. While his rhetoric had undergone a massive toning-down compared with his earlier days, Paisley had been the recipient of the polarisation of the two sides. Until the late '90s, when the "peace process" had begun in earnest, the main Protestant party was the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP); after this point, Protestant views became more intransigent against surrendering their position in favour of the Catholics, and flocked to the more hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), represented by Paisley. So for a time in the 2000s, Paisley became the provincial head of government, in tandem with his Catholic deputy (and former terrorist) Martin McGuinness.  More recently, trouble has flared up again from the Protestants, who rioted as a result of a compromise with the Catholics over the flying of the British flag from government buildings in the province. But the UUP are finished as a political force, and the hardline DUP still hold sway over the Protestant vote in Northern Ireland, demonstrating that religion is often anathema to moderation.
For Brits who live on "the mainland", the politics of Northern Ireland is an unfathomable mess.

The same can be said of Syria, but in this, Syria's "troubles" are far more extensive, horrifying, and potentially explosive.
Like its neighbour Iraq, Syria is a religious melting-pot of four or five major religious and ethnic denominations: Sunni Muslims, Alawite (Shia) Muslims, Druze (Muslims), and Christians (of a few different Orthodox churches). And there are also the Kurds, too, who are a significant ethnic minority in the east. Given the delicate religious mix, it has seemed sensible that secularism would be the best way to avoid a sectarian war. That had been the case during the French Mandate between the First and Second World War, and also after Syria became independent.
Things became more complicated (and a ticking time-bomb of resentment) when Hafez Al-Assad, an Alawite, took power in the sixties. Although he officially continued the secular (and quasi-socialist) form of government, he began to fill the government with fellow-Alawites, who were far outnumbered by Sunni Muslims in the general population.
This reached a head when there was a Sunni "uprising" in the early eighties, which was brutally suppressed, and also suppressed to the outside world. It was only finally after the "Arab Spring" in 2011, when Hafez's son, Bashar, was in power, that the Sunnis were able to properly make their voices heard against the persecution and maltreatment from the Alawite-led "secular" government.
The problem with the Assad regime in Syria was not that it was secular; it was that it was clearly not secular, but favoured the Alawites (and to an extent, the Christians) at the expense of the Sunni majority. The rebellion against Bashar Al-Assad's government then quickly took on a religious dimension, which has broadened ever since, attracting the attention of Al-Qaeda-linked fighters to the Sunni Muslim side. The original aims - to make Syria a "free" country - has become confused amidst the conflicting aims of two major factions fighting on the ground against the regime, as well as the conflicting aims of the foreign powers (the West and the Gulf States) that supply them.
The rebels' political aim of "freedom" has now become merged with the religious aim of creating a Sunni Muslim-majority state, which has spurred-on horrifying levels of violence and reprisals on both sides.
For the West, the politics of Syria has become and unfathomable mess.

Thus in Northern Ireland, thus in Syria.

The "Arab Spring" that first sprouted in Tunisia, which toppled regimes there and in neighbouring Libya and Egypt (as well as, indirectly, Yemen), was meant to be about freedom and democracy.
These states had been ruled for decades by secular dictatorships. During the Cold War, America tolerated this as it feared what the result would be if the Arabs gained the right to vote with their religious conscience. Iran was a short lesson that matched its greatest fears: what had originally been a "democratic" revolution against Iranian Shah, turned into an Islamic revolution when anti-Shah secularists, lacking a clear leader of their own, sided with the Muslim conservatives to install Ayatollah Khomeini as an "apolitical" leader.

The "Arab Spring" took its inspiration from contemporary Turkey, which had put some of the West's fears of mass Islamic revolution across the Middle East to rest.
While the Arab world had been under the thumb of American-backed secular dictatorships, Turkey had been a secular democracy since the around the Second World War, or thereabouts. To be fair, its form of "democracy" was far from perfect, and in some areas bore little relation to the West, such the strong weight that the military had over how the country was governed (and intervened directly when it felt necessary). Furthermore, grievances by ethnic and religious minorities tended to be swept under the carpet in the name of unity.
But some conservative Muslims felt that for too long Turkey's secular democracy was not properly representative of its religious values, and that the various official parties had brushed their views under the carpet like with other marginalised groups. One person who held this view was Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been istanbul's mayor during the nineties.
Knowing how Turkey's political system effectively banned religious parties from parliament, he created the AK ("Justice and Development") Party, which was not overtly religious; conservatively Muslim in values, but capitalist in economics and tolerant and pro-European in outlook (or so it seemed). Once his party came to power in 2002, he emphasized the need for "democratic" reforms that broadened freedom of (religious) expression; similarly, he sought to "democratise" Turkey by removing the influence of the army. It was this, and the steps to improve Turkey's economy, that earned him the respect of the West. It was for these reasons that the West had felt reassured by the "Arab Spring's" inspiration from Turkey.

We know now that this story does not end well. As in Turkey, as in The Arab Spring.

While Erdogan in Turkey was "democratising" the country, the West was wilfully ignoring the real purpose for the "reforms", while also ignoring the obvious signs over the years of creeping authoritarianism and Islamification, as I've explained before.
The same process can be seen in the Middle East, post-Arab Spring. While Arab states are ruled by AK Party-like groups, they make the claim that because they are the largest party, it means they have a mandate to implement Islamic policy. Thus they subvert the purpose of democracy for religious purposes to mean Islamic majoritarianism. All those who therefore do not subscribe to a religious government are therefore against the popular will.
The hideous irony is that two years on from the Arab Spring, with his reaction to the Gezi Park protests, Erdogan has finally been recognised by the West as the religious authoritarian he was all along, while using the masquerade of democracy to achieve his aims; and now the Arab Spring bears all the hallmarks of following the same pattern as Erdogan's "Turkish Spring" at the ballot box in 2002.

This is another example of why religion and politics don't mix. The result is often ugly.

Pakistan is another example of what happens when you have religious parties in a (supposedly) democratic system. Politicians then start using religion as a weapon against their enemies; the same has been done in the past in neighbouring India during the rule of the Hindu nationalist BJP. Religion was used as a weapon there by Hindu politicians to blame Muslims; the result was massacres and the destruction of religious sites.

Let the religious leaders stick to the religion, in the confines of their religious places. Let politicians stick to the politics, in the dull confines of their drab government buildings.
Let the religious leaders deal with personal morality, and the politicians deal with social policy.
And never the two should meet!

Erdogan, the AKP, and the language of Fascism

Ten days on from my last article about the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the language coming from Erdogan and his ministers has reinforced the point I made comparing him to other authoritarians in recent European history.

Erdogan praised "his police" as "heroes"(see link) for dealing with the harsh conditions while dealing with protests. This is a hideous contortion of the truth for two reasons: not only were the police tactics absolutely brutal at times and inexcusably disproportionate; Erdogan's "heroes" were forced to work without breaks even for food, sometimes for days - surely with Erdogan's knowledge. There are two possible reasons for this: either Erdogan and his allies knew that the police were loyal to man, and could push the police to the limits; or second, and following from this, they also knew that ill-treated (and thus short-tempered) police would make a stronger "impression" on the protesters. Considered how appallingly cynical much of what has come out of Erdogan's mouth in the last few weeks, anything is possible.
In the meantime, the police's brutish behaviour is praised as heroic, while peaceful protest (and social media) is damned as akin to terrorism, and thus worthy of the strongest response possible. Thus language is used by the AKP (like Fascist regimes before) to create the opposite meaning.

It is clear that the police are effectively working as the AKP's foot-soldiers. Erdogan, as I said in my previous article, has followed in the footsteps of previous authoritarians. In order to control the country and prevent him from being kicked out in a coup, Erdogan needed to neuter the army. This was done through the "Ergenekon" scandal that erupted several years ago, which was then used to make a widespread overhaul of the pro-secular military top ranks, replacing them with Erdogan place-men. At the time this was done in the name of "democratising" the establishment from military interference, which gained Erdogan some Western plaudits.
In a similar manner (though in different circumstances), the "Night Of Long Knives" in 1934 was used by Hitler as a way to gain the trust of the army, who at the time were still loyal to President Hindenburg, and were seen as protectors of the constitution. The "Night Of Long Knives" was a wholesale destruction of the leadership and power of the SA (the main Nazi militia), who were seen as a threat to the army (and whom the SA's leader, Ernst Rohm, wanted to replace). Hitler claimed there was a threat of a coup by the SA, and used this as an opportunity to gain the eternal trust of the army and destroy the rival power-base of the SA.
Hitler used the threat of an SA coup to gain the trust (and control) of the army, and the respect of President Hindenburg for "saving the country" from the SA; in the same way, Erdogan used the "Ergenekon" scandal as a way to gain effective control of the army, and the respect of the West for appearing as a "democratic reformer".

Over the last few weeks, the rhetoric from the AKP has become increasingly intolerant of "Western morals", resorting to outright lies to create further polarisation and hatred of the protesters.
Erdogan, for instance, has continually stated as a bland fact the complete lie that protesters drank beer, and other disrespectful behaviour in Dolmabahce mosque, in Besiktas, Istanbul. The imam of the mosque itself has stated that no such behaviour happened; regardless, Erdogan continues to state this lie as truth; clearly continuing Hitler's maxim that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it is true.
Furthermore, Erdogan has said at a rally that headscarved women were being attacked; meanwhile, Turkey's Deputy PM, when seeing a woman standing in a bikini in Istanbul's central Taksim Square, stated he "could barely restrain himself", such was his anger. He then went on criticise the woman for thinking that "nudity is freedom", while seeming to completely misunderstand that "nudity" requires no clothes at all; the woman was simply wearing what any Western-minded woman would wear at a beach - she was not nude.

Using "facts" to fit into a moral agenda (such as in Erdogan's "National Will" rallies), is as old as the hills in the language of authoritarianism. Phrases such as Erdogan's use of the "national will" is redolent of Fascism; though he uses it with a supposed democratic connotation, its real meaning is much darker, implying that those against him are against the "national will" and thus unworthy of his supporters' respect. The use of religion gives an even further sense of righteousness, and less need for respecting the wishes of one's (infidel) inferiors. Violence thus lurks just barely beneath the surface, as the police (and zealous AKP supporters) have been keen to demonstrate.

Thus Erdogan's AKP and his supporters are fighting a "moral battle" against the forces of Western immorality, like the Fascist regimes of the past, and Putin's of the present.

But the earlier woman's "nudity" is another example of facts being besides the point when dealing with authoritarians. "Facts" are malleable with Fascists and authoritarians; the same with truth. The truth is whatever a Fascist is saying at the time. If it contradicts what he said before, then his previous contradiction becomes "disinformation" or a "wicked distortion", as Erdogan has seen saying repeatedly of the Western media.
The Western media are the new target of Erdogan and his AKP. In behaviour that would have seemed unthinkable before, the Turkish government is fighting a war of words with Germany, the UK (over historic allegations of phone-tapping), the EU in general, and also the USA. Such a sudden backlash by another European country has not been seen in Europe since perhaps the Second World War. Serbia had its fair share of attacking Western media in the recent past, but Turkey is probably the only major European country to have resorted to such vehement rhetoric and propaganda against the foreign press in living memory. The fact that Turkey is now at the strongest position it has been in compared to other powers since before the Second World War, is also another unprecedented development.

Where does Erdogan intend to take this? His foreign policy has been described as "Neo-Ottomanism". Like how Mussolini was intent on restoring the ancient Roman Empire, Erdogan seems eager to recreate his own, "soft-power" version of a reconstituted Ottoman power across the region.
While Erdogan seems to have no desire for using the military directly, he has already done much of the hard work over the last ten years, making Turkey as the de facto power-broker and trade giant in the Middle East, and the bridge between the East and West. Though Erdogan appears to be doing his best to burn those bridges westward, he is reinforcing them to the East.
It seems when he looks to the Middle East and the way the Gulf States (not to mention Iran) have managed Capitalism with Islamic authoritarianism, Erdogan perhaps sees his future vision for Turkey. But Capitalism and authoritarianism (regardless of if religion is in the equation) is a recipe for Fascism.

Erdogan's behaviour all fits in with that of previous Fascist regimes, as I said in my previous article about Erdogan and authoritarianism. The only difference is in the detail.
Sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade. If the "spade" is Muslim, Christian, pagan or atheist, it makes no difference.

The Decline Of The West; or why Islam, China and "The East" are on the rise

I wrote a few months ago about the moral and ideological crisis that exists in the West, using the UK as an example.
It always pays to be a student of history, because then you begin to realise that many aspects of historical change get repeated. In the article mentioned above, I explained how extremist Muslims (and ideological extremists in general, for that matter) have been able to take advantage of the ideological confusion prevalent in the West in general (and the UK in particular, as an example).
I am not a right-wing conservative; if anything, I am a left-wing liberal. Nick Cohen's "You Can't Read This Book" that I mentioned in my earlier article may be about censorship, but the point he makes is a basic one. When a society no longer knows how to defend its own principles, it has lost its moral purpose, and can quickly become victim to outsiders with stronger (and more uncompromising) standpoints. Islamic extremism is an example of that, and how extremists have used "free speech" as an excuse to spread intolerance against criticism, and impose behaviours and practices on those of their own faith (or even non-believers), even if it breaks the law, and excuse it as "culture".

It pays to read history. While for some we may be living through a time of unprecedented freedoms, this is a dangerous illusion. The 1930s were synonymous with the "appeasement" of Fascism; in many ways, this is also what much of the West is guilty of in regards to the authoritarian regimes of the East now; the intellectual inability to tackle Muslim extremism is potentially as serious a problem. Compared with this, Fascism in Europe and Japanese expansionism was just a flash-in-the-pan moment. The stakes now may well be much higher in the longer term than those posed by Fascism and the Japanese Empire in the 1930s: China is the biggest (and soon to be richest) country in the world; meanwhile Islam is the fastest-growing (and intolerant) religion in the world. Regarding either of these issues, there seems to be no clear answer from the West. I'll talk more about why this is later.

This might sound like a preamble to "The Clash Of Civilisations", and I will accept that. I read the book without knowing firsthand that the author was a right-wing conservative. It makes for an engaging and well-argued piece of work. I may not agree with the author's politics, but the points he raises are worth serious consideration, especially that we are now twenty years after it was written.
It feels like we are at a pivotal moment in history. For the first time in centuries, the future of the West looks increasingly uncertain, while that of the East looks increasingly rosy.

Where exactly does true "freedom" exist? By "freedom", I mean the freedom to express your own opinion without fear of reprisal, let alone "democracy"; or the freedom to wear what you wish and behave as you like, provided it is not violent or aggressive?
In 2013, the number of places in the world is terrifyingly small in reality. In a general sense, this would probably include (and even this is debatable) the "Anglosphere" (i.e. the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand), most of geographical Europe, Japan, and a small number of other former European colonies. Beyond that, we are getting into increasingly shady areas of grey.

On the optimistic side, the USA's future looks secure in the long term, if it can avoid tearing itself in two in "culture wars" over polarising issues such as gun control and social values. The USA's demographic make-up is due to change to being majority non-white in the coming decades, but this is unlikely to have a significant change on the stability of the country's future: as American values such as freedom of expression and (imperfect) democracy are sacrosanct and enshrined in its belief system, there is no threat to this being ideologically challenged.
That said, George W. Bush's "War On Terror" had an inadvertent effect on "The East": it gave authoritarian regimes a ready excuse to ignore the West's criticisms and be even more authoritarian. It fatally weakened the moral standpoint of the West to foreign eyes, as they traded some of their freedoms for a greater sense of security; this also boosted the moral standpoint of Muslim extremism as they attacked the "hypocrisy" of the West. From that point on, there was no way back.

While on one side the "War On Terror" fatally damaged the moral standpoint of the West in "Eastern" (and Muslim) eyes, it was also the West's perceived ideological weakness at home that has damaged it even further.
This has been especially true in the UK and Europe in general, which has seemed incapable of forming a strategy to ideologically defeat Islamic extremism. As I mentioned earlier, when a nation no longer knows what it really stands for, it can quickly become a victim to more virulent, outside ideologies. This partially explains why Islamic extremism has been allowed to flourish almost unchecked in the UK and some parts of Europe.
 The problem is also that while Muslim moderates outnumber the extremists, they are silent when criticised by their extremist co-religionists.
The Muslim moderates seem incapable of defending their moderation intellectually; either by an intellectual vacuum, or lacking the moral certainty that extremism brings. Either in the West or in Muslim countries themselves, moderate Muslims seemed to be easily shouted-down and persecuted by their fundamentalist peers.
Muslim extremism is therefore bound to expand as a greater and greater aspect of Islam generally because it is not clouded by doubt; all their decisions are chosen by God; not their nationality or anything else. Westerners are not prepared to sacrifice their lives for their ideas; Muslim extremists are. This is what makes Islam so dangerous to the West's ideological future; if neither the West nor Muslim moderates can beat the extremists, extremism will only grow. There is no such thing as having a debate with an extremist; the idea of "debate" is anathema to them.

The simple explanation for this is that both Islamic extremism, and the ideology of authoritarianism prevalent in the "East", do not have to tackle the issue of "freedom of thought" that exists in the West.

In the West, ideas are discussed and the answer is arrived at (at least in theory) through intellectual debate. Only by allowing freedom of thought and expression can all ideas (and therefore, the best one) be discovered.
The conventional wisdom in the West is that the most advanced and richest countries in the world would logically be those that are the freest. This may well be a simplistic vision, but one that any Westerner would recognise.
Francis Fukuyama's book "The End Of History" bought into this idea, predicting twenty years ago since the West had won the "war of ideas" with the Soviet Union, the rest of the world would follow suit, and join "the land of milk and honey"; where freedom and democracy reign.

Twenty years on from that, it is easy to mock such optimism.
The more nuanced reality is that, in many ways, the "East" did learn lessons from the West and the end of the Cold War. China, for one, learned how it was possible to have its cake and eat it: it implemented "Communism with Chinese characteristics" long before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and thus over a thirty-year period became the world's most successful (and efficient) one-party Capitalist state. Russia, after the chaotic decade following the end of Communism, rediscovered the joys of authoritarianism under Putin, and follows a similar model to China, albeit with a few "democratic indulgences", such as technically having a multi-party parliamentary system.
The irony now is that the most politically-stable countries and those with the brightest economic prospects are almost all in the East. China and Russia's futures are secure; the same can be said of the Gulf States; Turkey's future, also looks rosy, in spite of now having an increasingly authoritarian (and Islamic) government. But Erdogan is simply doing what other "Eastern" leaders have done. The same can be said of the Gulf States; their culture may seem a bizarre hybrid of Capitalism and Islam, but it works for them. They have all learned to take from the West what they can apply easily to their own countries, and discard the rest, excusing it on "culture". This is how the East has been able to be more efficient Capitalists than Westerners; as they see "human rights" (and employee rights) as a Western indulgence, and only pay lip service to such ideas when they need to.

In the East, people are willing to ignore the concept of "freedom" as long as the economy is doing well. In the West, people see the two as inextricably linked. This is the key difference.

Easterners may well therefore look at the current economic and ideological malaise in the West as being a direct result of their "freedom". What a Westerner considers freedom, an Easterner could instead call "weakness", or "moral degradation". The USA is currently struggling economically; the UK is moribund; the Eurozone has become a German economic protectorate. So while the East is prospering because it has found a formula that marries Eastern authoritarianism with Western elements of Capitalism, the West is failing  (and getting poorer) because of weaknesses in the structure of its ideology.

To take the example of China (though there are many others, such as Russia or the Gulf States), its one-party command model of the country allows it to make decisions at a moment's notice. If it wants to build a dam, or a new city, it simply gets the ball rolling. If this plan fails (and causes massive unemployment, or other social and environmental problems), it just brushes itself off, learns some lessons, and tries another approach. While this is a simplification, for the most part, this is how the East gets things done. It is learning-by-doing, or a trial-and-error approach to government. The Soviet Union was another classic example of this methodology. The large exception to this rule, India, is a democracy: and because this system encourages debate at the expense of decision-making, it it means that large, strategic and long-term decisions are faced with interminable delays.

This is the problem that the West now faces, too. The trial-and-error approach that the East does as second nature faces huge hurdles in the West. The "freedom" that democracy brings to the West (that the East sees as inherently anarchic) means that governmental decisions (especially long-term ones) generally have to be arrived at carefully and only after long deliberation and debate. But the free nature of the West, and the "problem" of democracy means that no government can be at all sure that any long-term decision one government makes will be continued by the next. Institutional short-termism is therefore the natural result of freedom and democracy in the West. Even if governments do decide to stick with a plan, the right to free expression means that a government can quickly cave-in to popular resentment, because they want to be re-elected at the next election. This is the nature of democracy.

This also explains why, counter-intuitively, the East is better equipped at reacting to a crisis than the West. This explains why the American President may be on paper the most man person in the world, but is ineffectual at making any changes to his own country; and also explains why the Chinese Premier can flex far more muscle and effect change rapidly in his own country and the world, when he wants to. It explains why China can build Maglevs, and why the UK's own train network is a shambles.

I propose no answer to this situation. As I see it, there may well be none. The East and The West simply have different ideological ideas, and thus cannot be reconciled. The West is now institutionally and ideologically weak compared to the East. And yet, if the West is not consistent in its ideological support of freedom and democracy, then it stands for nothing. It seems pointless trying to preach to The East about our values; the evidence has shown that all that happens is that the other "culture" takes what it can to make itself stronger; it distrusts anything that will make it weaker.This is normal, and to be expected of any culture that has a sense of self-respect.

It is the West that has failed; it is the East that has won.

From Hitler and Mussolini to Putin and Erdogan: A short history of authoritarianism in modern Europe

Authoritarianism as an ideology has existed since time immemorial. In the twentieth century, the term became synonymous with Fascism amongst the left-wing, and with Communism amongst the right-wing. It has become the stick to beat your enemies on the other side of the political spectrum with.

The end of the Second World War was assumed as many to be the end of authoritarian government in Europe. After the tragedies brought upon Europe by Fascism, no-one thought it would ever happen again. The modern EU, and its precursor, the EEC, are attempts to stamp out its ideology; though the irony is that, by now, some in Europe (especially on the political right) see the modern EU as little more than an authoritarian super-state. Many people in Southern Europe see the EU's bureaucracy as ran from Brussels, but financed from Berlin. Whatever your point of view, authoritarianism never truly dies; it simply learns to adapt to the new rules, and morphs accordingly.

The ideology is simply about the concentration of power in the hands of the state, and an erosion of freedom, accountability, inclusion and democratic principles: in other words, tyranny.
Authoritarianism in Europe can be simply explained through the (male) personalities that have helped to define it.

After the First World War, Europe was economically weak. The European nation-states were broadly (if imperfectly) democratic, but wracked by political weakness after the legacy of the war. For many states, all it needed was a strongman with a vision, and a bit of good fortune and timing, and the house of cards could come collapsing down.

Mussolini

With the rise of Bolshevism in Russia, this was Europe's bogeyman at the time. All major countries were affected by civil and political strife because of this. Benito Mussolini in Italy was the first person in a major European country to strike a blow for authoritarianism, with his "Fascist" party.
Mussolini's "March on Rome" in 1922 was basically a coup d'etat against the elected government. At the same time traditionalist yet revolutionary, Mussolini's party appealed across class divides. As he was a charismatic speaker with a hypnotic personality (Hugo Chavez being a contemporary, if ideologically-opposed, comparison), he held on to power through force of will.

It is often forgotten now that Mussolini's early years in power involved coalitions of Fascists with other parties. His path to an authoritarian police state was a gradual one over several years.
He changed electoral law to raise the threshold for other parties to enter parliament, and increasing use of propaganda was used to discredit parties opposed to Mussolini's "reforms". After excluding more and more parties from parliament, by 1926, Italy was a one-party state; a strong personality cult around Mussolini was created, as well as youth organisations to add to the militant (violent) wing of the party, to intimidate any remaining opponents. Before long, anyone in state employment (such as teachers) had to adhere to "Fascist" principles, while the media became tightly controlled so that they were obliged to follow the government line. Although there was technically a "free press", in reality, all media outlets needed licences issued by the government, though this fact was not widely known to the public.
Under Mussolini, the Italian economy became an amalgam of socialist and capitalist ideas; on the the one hand providing subsidies and agricultural projects for farmers, while on the other destroying union power and encouraging "prestige projects", that gained Italy international economic credibility, as well as a fortune for those capitalists with links to the government.

For more about the "economics of Fascism", see here.

Hitler

While Mussolini was the yardstick for any aspiring authoritarians in Europe to follow, there were people like Hitler in Germany who wanted to take things even further. While Mussolini was learning the the ropes of government, in 1923, Hitler and his "Nazi" Party attempted a coup in Munich in 1923. This landed Hitler in a short term in prison, and while Germany's "Weimar" government was able to find a way through the same crisis years that had brought Mussolini to power in Italy, when the Great Depression hit in 1929, the mainstream parties of Germany suffered from a lack of credibility and vision.
By now Hitler had made the "Nazi" Party one of the biggest parties in the country, with its own militia, the SA. The SA had an ugly reputation, mostly for beating up Communists and Socialists. 1932 was the pivotal year, when the economic crisis and mass unemployment sent many voters to either the Nazis or the Communists. Political violence increased. President Hindenburg met with the then-Chancellor (equivalent to Prime Minister), von Papen, who represented the main moderate rightist party, after election in the autumn. Neither Von Papen nor Hindenburg liked Hitler, or took him too seriously, but at the same time took the rise of the Nazis as a worrying threat to Germany's stability. As the Nazis were the largest party, von Papen suggested offering the Chancellorship to Hitler, with von Papen as the vice; effectively there to keep Hitler under control, but allow Hitler to take the blame for any blunders, or so he thought.

But Hitler was no political novice, and was able to turn the tables on von Papen very quickly. The Reichstag fire in February 1933, shortly after Hitler assumed office, was used for Hitler to gain emergency powers. Von Papen was quickly sidelined, and for the next eighteen months, Hitler set about "Nazifying" the rest of Germany. Under the cloud of crisis, attacks on Jews increased, concentration camps for political opponents (and some Jews) were established, while the general air of menace increased. The Gestapo (secret police) were established, which massively increased the surveillance of the population. There was a move towards "co-ordination" encouraged by the Nazi government, which led to massive self-censorship, and encouraged a willingness to fall in behind the revolutionary air of Nazi Germany.
While all this was happening, however, the increasing role of the SA, and its leader, Ernst Rohm, was a source of political infighting amongst the Nazi hierarchy. Rohm wanted the SA to replace the regular German army, who were loyal to President Hindenburg. By the late spring of 1934, the political infighting and casual violence of the SA was of such concern to von Papen and Hindenburg, that Hindenburg was seriously considering a coup d'etat to have Hitler replaced. By now, Hitler was equally paranoid about Rohm and the SA's power, and in the "The Night Of Long Knives" later on that summer, had Rohm, other SA leaders and any perceived allies in the Nazi party, killed.
Hitler then spun this as a successful counter-attack against a Rohm-led coup d'etat, which earned the respect and gratitude of Hindenburg. Soon after, Hindenburg died, and Hitler abolished the title of "President", and made himself "Leader" as well as Chancellor of Germany. From this point on, there was no looking back.

Franco

Apart from Mussolini and Hitler, the most successful authoritarian leader in Europe was Franco in Spain. In simple longevity and endurance, Francoist Spain (whose Fascist ideology was called Falangism) long outlived Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Franco borrowed heavily from Mussolini and Hitler, but was much more like Mussolini in that his ambitions were mainly internal rather than external. Franco wanted a strong state; he was less interested in recapturing the colonies of the former Spanish Empire, as it was a practical impossibility.
In this sense, Franco's longevity could be down to learning from the "overstretch" that brought about Hitler's fall, and similarly, Mussolini's disastrous alliance with the Nazis. He emphasized Spain's Catholic heritage, as well as the Capitalist (and staunchly anti-Communist) side of Fascism, in its own Falangist style. Franco's emphasis on neutrality during the Second World War, and the fact that he was staunchly anti-Communist when the Cold War began, meant that Franco was left to his own devices, or seen as a friend of Capitalism to America and the West. This is what allowed Fascism to endure in Spain until Franco's death in 1975.

Putin

Authoritarianism in Russia is nothing new; in fact, Russia has hardly known any different. In that sense, comparing authoritarianism in Russia to that in Europe is a little unfair. That being said, I said earlier that authoritarianism is best seen through its leading personalities, as most authoritarian regimes need a strong leader in order keep them in power. In Vladimir Putin, postmodern Europe has its best exemplar of how to create and maintain an authoritarian state.
As a KGB man in the Soviet Union, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin initially retreated into anonymity. The Russian state in the 1990s resembled many of the qualities of "Weimar" Germany: a weak central state, an economy out of control, with a military of uncertain political loyalty. In another sense, though, it was worse. Corruption exploded, with the rise of the "oligarchs", who took advantage of the state's weakness by making newly privatised industries their own private fiefdoms. Putin entered into President Yeltsin's cabinet in 1997, where he quickly rose, becoming Prime Minister in 1999. By this time Yeltsin was seen as a political liability and incapable of effective (or even sober) leadership, leaving Putin ideally placed in the forthcoming presidential elections when Yeltsin resigned at the end of 1999.

Putin saw his role as recapturing the functions of the Russian state that had been allowed to fall away during Yeltsin's tenure; that even included actual territory, such as Chechnya, which had been effectively independent since 1991. Putin saw that Chechnya was brought back into the fold by whatever means necessary, in a brutal war that lasted through the winter of 1999-2000.
Under Putin, the oligarchs were brought under control of the state. Those that didn't abide by Putin's rules were either forced into line, imprisoned, or forced into exile. At the same time, other oligarchs that were Putin allies came into prominence to challenge the "old" oligarchs.
While the economy improved significantly under Putin's watch, the media came under unprecedented attack from the state. Some critical journalists were killed, while others were imprisoned. Meanwhile, the media in general was regulated tightly by the state. Opposition media outlets were allowed, but the impression seemed to be that they served a purely cosmetic function - even providing the government a useful scapegoat when necessary. It hardly needs to be mentioned that the legal system in Russia is tipped heavily in favour of the status quo.
The same can be said of opposition parties. Putin's party, "United Russia" have an overwhelming majority of seats in the parliament, with the opposing parties giving a fig-leaf of democracy. Election procedures are widely seen to be rigged. Meanwhile, like in previous authoritarian (Fascist) states, there is a widespread youth wing to Putin's party called "Our Russia"; these zealous teenagers have been known to vandalise and intimidate other "enemies of the state", while the police turn a blind eye. The same can be said of any hooligans who attack democracy campaigners, or social liberals.
The constitution has also been amended to suit Putin's wishes. The constitution allowed for only two consecutive presidential terms, so before he stepped down to swap places with Dmitri Medvedev, his Prime Minister, he boosted the powers of the PM at the expense of the President. Then, during his term as PM, the law was changed to increase Presidential terms from four to six years. As agreed with Medvedev, they swapped places once more in 2012, so that now Putin may potentially run for another two consecutive terms, but now for twelve years rather than eight. So Putin can be president until 2024.

Erdogan

I wrote last week about Erdogan's role in the Gezi Park protests, and when looking at his behaviour over the twelve years of his premiership, his behaviour more fits that of an authoritarian than a democrat. I compared him before to Britain's demagogue-like former-PM, Margaret Thatcher, but although she did largely reshape Britain in her own image, it was because of her economic ideas, and she did not tinker massively with the inner workings of the state, such as the judiciary, the military, media regulation and so on. Erdogan has, and that's what makes him less of a democrat and more of an autocrat. Yes, he has been working within the confines of a democratic system, he has also been reshaping that system to fit to his own wishes. Circumstances simply force him to player a longer and more cunning game. Mussolini did the same thing before; so did Hitler; so has Putin.
What makes Erdogan seem out-of-place compared to those above is the fact he is Muslim. But Franco was passionately Catholic, and used his faith too to explain much of what he did to Spain. Erdogan uses his faith to explain the need to make social reforms so that they, so he implies, more closely reflect the ideas of the devout majority. But this is not democracy; it is ochlocracy - rule of the mob, where a demagogue most feels at home. Authoritarianism uses the same techniques to stay in power; it is called "divide and rule".
While Erdogan says he is happy to abide by the democratic will, he has already moulded the political system to his benefit. The electoral system was altered to raise the threshold for parties to enter parliament, limiting number of parties in parliament.. He has also intimidated the media so that they dare not criticise him or face prison (Turkey has the highest numbers of journalists in prison in the world at the moment). Meanwhile, the judiciary have already been filled with Erdogan place-men, and the military, once a strong force in the background of Turkish politics, has been emptied of Erdogan critics so that it no longer can disrupt the political process (or replace any politician that oversteps the boundaries). He has hugely expanded the number of Islamic schools, using education as a tool being another common method of "spreading the word". Education (as a form of indoctrination) is one of the most valuable weapons in the authoritarian armoury.

Peaceful protest, like in Gezi Park is met by overwhelmingly disproportionate police force. Using the language of authoritarianism, peaceful protesters are seen as equivalent to terrorists, thus justifying brutal police behaviour. Like in Russia, now that Erdogan has the support of half of the population, the "other fifty per-cent" (the mostly secular, Western-minded opposition), are seen as a useful scapegoat for all Turkey's problems. They are the "roadblocks to reform".
Foreign conspirators are blamed for unrest; another common authoritarian (and fascist) scapegoat, blaming the Western media for spreading "disinformation" (i.e. the truth). For ten years Erdogan has courted Western attention, and has seen Turkey's economy grow massively as a result. Now that Turkey has grown self-sufficient, and paid off its debt to the IMF, Erdogan no longer needs to worry about Western opinion: they have served their purpose. Erdogan's careful nurturing of the Middle East and the Gulf States (as well as Russia and the Far East) in tandem with the West, has meant he can now safely ignore the West's haranguing and focus on the East, using the West and "Western immorality" instead as a useful scapegoat for any internal dissent. This follows the same path that his contemporary Putin followed (in initially flattering the West in his first few years in power, before using them as a scapegoat when Putin no longer needed Western investment). Previous authoritarian (Fascist) dictators made this approach typical.
Like Putin, Erdogan wants to become President, once he has altered the constitution to give him greater powers. The Gezi Park protests, now that the media, judiciary and military are under Erdogan's thumb, may be seen as a vehicle to advance his cause; an opportunity for him to destroy the secular half of the country through provocation, stoke up fears of violence from his opponents, then use the "emergency" to make a further, irreversible power-grab.
This is a standard method of gaining power by authoritarians; engineer a crisis, and seize the opportunity.

Authoritarianism never dies; it simply learns to adapt to the rules of the game.

Read here for more about Erdogan and his ministers' Orwellian use of language to achieve their aims.

Gezi Park and the Turkey Protests; Erdogan and the "Turkish model"

The so-called "Turkish model" has been said to have been the main inspiration for the "Arab Spring". Turkey's political model of marrying Islam within a democratic state was supposed to be the exemplar for the Arab world. In the space of a few days, that "exemplar"'s political model has been seriously shaken, if not shattered.

It's worth remembering on what basis Turkey's political system operates. Turkey was founded by Ataturk, who wanted to create a secular (non-religious) state out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. As Turkey was a Muslim country, this required an authoritarian government to bring about this social change, and a multi-party democratic system only came properly in practice years after Ataturk's death.
It was only after the Second World War that Turkey began to experience a functioning multi-party system, although this also included intermittent periods of military rule. Religion and politics were still kept well apart. Prior to the "breakthrough" of the AKP in 2002, there had only been one government by an openly-religious party: that of the "Refah" (welfare) Party in the mid-nineties, which was quickly removed after only a year in office for overstepping the lines between secularism and Political Islam.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist AK Party "broke the mould" in 2002. After the mistakes made by the "Refah" Party in the nineties, Erdogan realised that to gain a real breakthrough, his party had to find a balancing act between adhering to secularism while still appealing to the views of the many Turks (perhaps as many as half) who were practising Muslims. This "balancing act" has paid-off at the ballot box, by keeping Erdogan in power for a third consecutive term, something unprecedented in contemporary Turkish politics.

But by "breaking the mould" of secular Turkish politics, Erdogan was also able to effectively re-cast a new one that would give him and his party an in-built advantage. As the AK Party was the only major party that was moderately religious, and whose standpoints were generally moderate, this meant the AK Party ruled the roost over a crowded field of secular parties. In other words, while the "Muslim vote" could well remain united behind the AK Party and Erdogan (as long as they appealed to them), the "secular vote" was effectively splintered - by leftist, centre and rightist parties.

This is a simplification, though, because in reality many secularists have also voted for the AK Party as they approved of their economic policies and tolerated the AK Party's (seemingly) mild Islamism. But over time, Erdogan has shown more overt signs of Islamism and authorianism, as well as an intolerance for criticism. In his first term, Erdogan seemed eager to look as harmless as possible, but over time it seems his true nature underneath gradually began to appear. Laws began to appear to remove some of the "secular restrictions" on freedom of religious expression (such as wearing headscarves in public buildings); this then turned to restrictions on freedom of speech and a covert censoring of the press. Journalists became covertly harassed and some jailed. The military were also "reformed" so they were more acceptable to Erdogan's liking. Abdullah Gul, Erdogan's former foreign minister, became President. And then there were also the more obvious signs of "creeping Islamisation": the government making laws to restrict certain types of public behaviour and more conservative social policy, and finally the laws to restrict the sale of alcohol. Which leads us to Gezi Park.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it was the brutality of the police response to a peaceful "sit-in" by environmentalists in a small leafy park in the middle of Istanbul's modern centre (next to the city's main square) that what provoked the mass response.
It would be a simplification to say that the protests are by the "other fifty percent" who are secularists rather than Islamists, but this is still largely true. While there are some devout Muslims who are showing solidarity with the movement, the majority of demonstrators are secularists who want to preserve Turkey's founding values, and also see Erdogan personally as a natural authoritarian who has eroded the rights of Turks during his time in office. A third issue is the anti-Capitalism platform, who see Erdogan and the AK Party as shameless capitalists who have made great strides with Turkey's economy, but at the expense of civic and environmental issues.
So in this way, the "Gezi Park" demonstrators are pro-secular, anti-authoritarian and anti-Capitalist. Or more exactly, their supporters may come from a wide spectrum of political beliefs (from anarchists and communists, to right-wing nationalists, including gay rights and environmental campaigners), but they are united in their acceptance of each other. If there is one thing they all agree on, they would agree that they stand for freedom of expression and respecting each other and the shared environment. They see Erdogan as embodying the opposite.

The protests have been compared to the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement, but it would be more accurate to say that the protesters have simply learned from both these past experiences, and applied a strategy and tactics to suit the situation. The widespread nature of the demonstrations, still ongoing in different cities across the country after a week (with no signs of disappearing), is evocative of Tahrir Square and Egypt two years ago, but Turkey is not a dictatorship, and its Muslim population do not feel under-represented.

The protests seem to have a life of their own. There are no leaders. The group of demonstrators are so disparate that it might seem hard to understand what keeps them from arguing amongst each other (as they had been for the last ten years), but as I said, it seems to be the bigger picture - their dislike of Erdogan and the aggressive police - that unites them.
The spirit of "Gezi Park" is that of live-and-let-live, or so it seems. Since the police left Gezi Park and Taksim on Saturday (1 June), barricades were constructed on all the roads leading up from Besiktas (where the police retreated to), leaving Gezi Park and Taksim Square as a virtual "police-free" state. Since then, a self-contained (if crowded!) community has established itself in the park and environs, right in the middle of the city centre; complete with shops, a library, art open-air art galleries, as well as tents. To all intents and purposes, like Christiania in Copenhagen, this looks like the spontaneous creation of a community of free-will and free speech: where people care for each and respect each other, without the need for laws or police (or money) to control them. The difference is that the Gezi Park community is overtly a political forum as well as a place of freedom of expression and behaviour.

In some ways the protests are also reminiscent of the Poll Tax riots against Margaret Thatcher in her last years in office, who - like Erdogan - was a populist demagogue in many ways, using divide-and-rule tactics to run the country, and became more and arrogant, dictatorial and aggressive as time went on. She was finally ousted by her own party. Some claim that she was a psychopath; many populist demagogues are.

Erdogan's style of rule therefore has more parallels with that of Thatcher's in the UK than Mubarak in Egypt. But since then the nature of protest has changed and matured, become more inventive and dynamic. People like Erdogan are left to feel like political dinosaurs of a different age when events suddenly are changed by a new dynamic. Like Thatcher, who was forced from power without really understanding why it happened, Erdogan refuses to see the need to adapt, as he has never needed to before, and would consider it a humiliation to do so.

His populist and divisive tactics may well finally work against him now.

UKIP, the Woolwich attack, multiculturalism and the political establishment

I wrote previously about the Woolwich attack, and how it has been hijacked by extremists to advance their own causes. This is entirely predictable, as the political situation in England begins to resemble that of Germany between 1929-32. History has a habit of repeating itself if people do not learn the right lessons. The rise of "Golden Dawn" in Greece is one example; the rise of UKIP in England is another.

I wrote in an article a few months ago that UKIP had the potential to become a permanent force in England by learning from how the LibDems became established as the third party of British politics. The May elections only served to prove that point.
UKIP's popularity is no surprise, if you look at the political undercurrents, and the gradual changes that have happened in British society over the last twenty years.

The rise of Blair's "New Labour" came about after the defeat to John Major in the '92 general election. After the Labour leader John Smith died, Blair took Labour to the political centre, and it allowed his party to ideologically dominate British politics for the next fifteen years. David Cameron, when he became Conservative leader in 2005 (roughly ten years after Blair had dominated British politics), decided to ape his ideology to get his party into power. So by 2010, the next general election that was fought under this new "Blairite consensus", the three main parties had all officially accepted the so-called "social democratic" agenda. The only major difference was on how to deal with the financial crisis.

The last twenty years has seen a growing acceptance of the "social democratic" agenda: a diverse, accepting and socially-liberal society, in contrast to the earlier mood of narrow-mindedness and social conservatism of the previous generation.
It is also important to emphasize the generational aspect of this shift: that young people born in the last twenty years have accepted much of the "social-democratic" agenda. However, while the younger generation are more socially-liberal than their parents, they are also more economically-liberal as well. This has been borne out by evidence: that "Thatcher's children", or "Generation Y", think that the state should have a smaller role to play in their lives, and are more sceptical of the "welfare state".
This is of huge importance to the future of British politics. But even more than that is the fact that participation in conventional politics (eg. membership of the "big three" parties) has collapsed. The generation raised in "Blair's Britain" have registered extremely high levels of apathy towards conventional politics, and most of them have felt ignored by the political establishment. The rise of student fees, I imagine, is just one issue that would unite the young against those in power. The young, therefore, do not take politics half as seriously as their previous generation.

This "social democratic" consensus has occurred at the same time as the rise of the "professional politician" as a class. To become a politician, the vast majority of those in Westminster have been involved in politics since university; they study politics, then straightaway enter into politics, working their way to the top.
The "professionalisation" of politics that Blair brought to the the UK with his reform of the Labour party (after being inspired by Bill Clinton's Democrats) became the norm as we entered the 21st century. Politics became about "following the party message", so that politicians all began to speak with one voice for their party; and after Cameron became Conservative leader, all three parties became obsessed with speaking with the same voice in order to appeal to the "centre ground".
As a result, many political issues became "non-issues": the positive effect of the EU; uncontrolled immigration; complete acceptance of all faiths and opinions. The rush to the "centre ground" also meant that both Labour and the Conservatives effectively ignored their traditional voter-base (the "working class", both urban and rural). As these voters had no other parties to represent their concerns (which included the so-called "non-issues" mentioned above), Labour and the Conservatives allowed themselves to become complacent. Even if some of their traditional voter-base didn't vote for them, the first-past-the-post electoral system (and the concept of "safe seats") ensured that no other party could appear to steal their votes. Westminster was, to all intents and purposes, a closed shop.

All these factors now work in UKIP's favour. Although the first-past-the-post system works against them, it simply means that for a new party to appear, it must have a solid and broad voter-base to break into the system. UKIP have shown that they have that. Proportional Representation favours small parties, but it also means that parties can appear and disappear from parliament quickly, with the rise and fall of political passions. FPTP makes this less likely. The three main parties in parliament have all been there for more and a hundred years. This suggests that the new four-party system that UKIP is carving out in England, may be here for a while to come.
I've said before that UKIP is essentially a "Thatcherite" party. As the younger generation are more likely to espouse "Thatcherite" economic values (economically liberal) and "Blairite" social values (socially liberal), this favours UKIP more than the other three parties, if UKIP can tap into the well of disaffection with politics that many young people feel. As UKIP is perfectly-positioned as the only "anti-politics" party around, it's not surprising that many of those who support UKIP are those who didn't vote before.

If UKIP didn't exist, it would be necessary to create it. The political establishment has brought itself to an ideological dead-end, to the extent that it has forgotten what it truly stands for. The "social-democratic" agenda came about in tandem with the concept of "political correctness". A few months ago, I wrote about how the idea of free speech has become warped into a self-defeating cause. The establishment has now become so wrapped-up in the concept of "free speech" that it will protect the legal rights of (Muslim) extremists who encourage mass murder. This is not "protecting free speech": it is ideological suicide. It is the behavior of a political creed that has lost the will to live.
Britain as a state has lost the will to defend its own beliefs. Since the Woolwich attack, the actions of the establishment and the police give a helping hand to the extremists.When the British police are protecting the rights of Muslim extremists who preach death to Britons and abhor democracy, this is not defending "multiculturalism": this is creating a logical contradiction. It is no wonder that Muslim extremists look to Britain as an example of a state with no beliefs of its own. It has forgotten what those beliefs are, so no longer knows what "rights" it is supposed to be defending.

This is how the political establishment are surrendering the moral high ground to the likes of the EDF, who therefore manage to give the impression of caring more about "British values" than the establishment itself. It is a pitiful indictment of those in power that they would rather perpetuate a system of "multiculturalism" that creates a segment of society that has little sense of belonging to the country they were born in. This is not "multiculturalism" - it is perpetuating cultural segregation.
It is telling that America has much less of a "radicalisation" problem with its own Muslim population than does the UK. This indicates that America as a nation has a much more defined sense of identity and values than Britain; that many more American Muslims feel "American" first and "Muslim" second rather than the other way around. The experience in Britain suggests the opposite.

Because Britain's establishment has an unclear sense of identity and values (and because the "social democratic" political establishment refuses to discuss these "issues" in case they appear "racist"), it surrenders the debate to the extremists on both sides.

With the present crop of self-serving, uninspired and vacuous "career politicians" in Westminster, it is no wonder that UKIP are so popular: for many people now, they are the only alternative. This is what happens when the political system seizes up and becomes broken, its only sense of purpose being self-perpetuation. Every so often the dialectic of political ideology changes, when the old orthodoxy loses its legitimacy. For the past twenty years, the "social democratic" orthodoxy has ruled the roost. But now, with the political establishment so complacent and arrogant towards its electorate, UKIP appears as the force for change, to bring a new dynamic to British politics that more accurately reflects the political reality.

Some might say UKIP are Fascists in all but name; but for others, it may be a price worth paying, if it means a restoration of sanity to British politics.